| Commerce Minister: Restriction on China's Textile Exports Groundless |
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| Wednesday,June 01,2005 Posted: 21:08 BJT(08 GMT) |
"The EU and U.S. quotas on Chinese textiles are based on primary data they obtained in a short period of just three or four months. The information is inaccurate and their decision is groundless."
On Friday, the EU formally requested talks with China over surging shipments of T-shirts and flax yarn. Washington has already imposed quotas on Chinese-made trousers, underwear, shirts and other goods in mid-May. These limits will cause a loss of two billion US dollars to Chinese manufacturers this year.
Bo Xilai said the US and EU failed to meet the WTO's preconditions by imposing limits on Chinese textiles.
Under WTO rules, the US and EU should first consult with China and provide "solid evidence" to prove both a surge in Chinese textile imports, and that this surge is causing disruption to their markets, before taking any restrictive measures.
Bo Xilai said if the EU and US had eliminated their previous quotas on Chinese textiles step by step instead of suddenly at the beginning of this year, the surge of Chinese textile exports to them could have been avoided.
On China's decision to scrap export tariffs on 81 textile products, Bo Xilai said the decision was made because the country can't tolerate putting its products under a double pressure.
"Before we raised export tariffs, we also set some preconditions that if in the future other countries imposed restrictions on Chinese textile products, we would no longer impose export tariffs upon them. Undoubtedly, we can't tolerate putting Chinese textile products under a double pressure."
China has twice introduced export taxes this year on more than 200 Chinese products in order to control the unacceptable surge to western markets.
But some of them will be soon scrapped as western countries' re-impose trade barriers against Chinese textile imports.
Bo Xilai says while China is willing to hold talks to resolve the trade dispute, it won't accept the US's Overall Arrangement or the EU Guidelines, which he says will deprive China of its legitimate right to benefit from free trade as a WTO member.
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